31 Jul August Osage County
"The only relationship to a hateful mother that can change – is with the one that lives inside." - August Osage County...
Dr. Sandra Cohen, a Beverly Hills psychoanalyst, writes about your favorite film, TV, and book characters
and their real human problems.
31 Jul Captain Phillips
"Violent crime is an abhorrent thing. But can we bring ourselves to empathize with circumstances that might lead someone to violence?" - Captain Phillips...
31 Jul Blue Jasmine
"If Jasmine French stopped for a moment, she’d know she doesn’t trust in being loved." - Blue Jasmine...
31 Jul Heartburn by Nora Ephron
"Hurt, anger, terror, and grief are normal. What these feelings really need is not to be quickly dismissed…." - Heartburn...
31 Jul Saving Mr. Banks
"…A spoonful of kindness is certainly not enough to convince a guilt-ridden child there is nothing to feel guilty about." - Saving Mr. Banks...
31 Jul The Wolf of Wall Street
"Is Martin Scorsese secretly enthralled and glorifying debauchery?" - The Wolf of Wall Street...
31 Jul There Are No Friends in a World of Greed
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET — Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street is an indulgently voyeuristic picture of MORE, MORE, MORE, at every level. Money, sex, drugs – there’s no stopping the film’s main characters, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his cohorts, from their purely hedonistic pursuits. And, yet, that’s still not enough. Is Martin Scorsese secretly enthralled and glorifying debauchery, as some critics and viewers suggest? Or, is his three-hour film really meant to take us inside the depraved minds of men who are completely out for themselves and have absolutely no capacity for human concern? What pushes someone, like Belfort, over...
31 Jul How to Buy a Will to Live
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB — There are two radical choices when faced with a death sentence: jolt into a potent sobriety and fight to live. Or, sink into despair so deep that drugs are a greater solace than fighting the monster killing you. Ron Woodroof, played brilliantly by Matthew McConaughey (Golden Globe Best Actor), chooses the former. But Rayon, a transgender woman, played with magnificent pathos by Jared Leto (Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor) can’t stop her harmful behaviors. What are the driving forces (emotional ones, that is) behind an out of character transformation versus self-destruction? Ron Woodroof, whose real life story Dallas Buyers Club tells,...
31 Jul Do You Have to Make a Poisonous Choice to Survive?
AMERICAN HUSTLE — David O. Russell’s American Hustle is a cinematic treatise on the complexities of survival. Irving Rosenfeld, Sydney Prosser (AKA Lady Edith Greensley), Richie DiMaso, and Rosalyn Rosenfeld are each, in their own uniquely perverse and destructive ways, just trying to survive. But, are they? If we remove ourselves from the intrigue of the hustle itself (based upon the FBI Abscam operation of 1980), what exactly can we learn about this particular brand of self-serving (or should I say, rather desperate) psychological survival? Each member of this troubled cast of characters is trying to “survive” the limits of their real identities. As Irving...
31 Jul Can a Child Survive a Mother’s Hate?
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY — A mother’s hate inflicts the worst kind of suffering. There’s not one child among the main characters in August: Osage County who escapes. Not Violet, not Mattie Faye, not Barbara, Karen, Ivey, or even little Charles. Most of the film’s immediate suffering is at the hands of Violet Westin, the cruel matriarch of the Westin family. There’s certainly no excuse for a mother’s cruelty. Yet, can it be understood? Even more importantly, how does a daughter save herself? Can a relationship with a mother like Violet ever change? In some rather twisted irony (at least to me as a psychoanalyst), August:...